Sunday, July 19, 2009

This past weekend was crazy with food! Our resident SPT (South Pole Telescope) scientist, Ross made plans to make some curry on Saturday, and I was able to swing by the galley and get some photos of him, as well as others, working on various items to add to the table! Tripp and Erin were back there, working on a glazed tart...

there's your glaze...

and there's your tart!

Ross was working on his curry, and he had three different curries that he made that night. There was a chicken curry, veggie curry, and a spicy chicken curry!!

I even got mixed up in it a little bit, stirring up what I could!

Cully knows how to make naan bread,

so he set about making plenty of bread for everybody!

We feasted that night, between the curry and the dessert! The next day didn't let up at all on us either. Ella, our doctor on station,

I'll back up a little bit...our aurora tech, Jonathon, was talking about how the hens we get for dinners and lunches are great, but that they were so small. Ella decided to fix that...and Johnny got his turkey!!

...actually, we all got some of that turkey!

We hit a record for the year so far in terms of temperatures this weekend...-96F ambient temp! What better way to deal with those kinds of temperatures than to load up on curry, followed the next day by a Thanksgiving meal that reminds you that home is where you make it! I might not want to leave this place in three months!!

Friday, July 10, 2009

Two weeks ago, a couple of us took a few days off of exercise induced activities...we were going to try and face the cold in the Scott tent that got set up right after the Midwinter celebrations. We met in the galley, made some Ramen, got another thermos full of hot water for hot chocolate, raided the cookies and Snickers stash, and went outside with our sleeping bags and provisions.

Once everybody had taken their walks around the tent, taken whatever pictures they were going to take, and got into both of the -40 rated sleeping bags, we were too tired to think about food, so we tried to get some sleep.

This proved difficult while in bags that wouldn't zip all the way up, as the cold air would work its way into the warmest part of the bag....and fester there. Around 3 o'clock in the morning there was a repositioning of the bags, and since everybody was up anyway, the struggle to get the bags completely closed continued since we didn't have to worry about waking anyone at that point. This made for a warmer night, and we were able to get some sleep before 8 o'clock rolled around. That is probably something that I will do again before the winter is over...believe it or not, it was actually a lot of fun!

Two months ago, a pool tournament started, and it wound up coming down to me and one of the carpenters, Bill Stiner. Our match was best of seven games, and I got to the fourth win before Bill. I walked away with $120 and Bill was able to add $90 to his wallet...either way you look at it, that's a lot of Snickers bars at $0.80 apiece!!

The time continues to crunch away down here. It's already pushing the middle of July...won't be too much longer before we start seeing sunlight again. Hard to believe that the year is mostly over. There are still a few things to look forward to before the sun comes up, and it will be here before we know it!

Hope everyone is continuing to have a great year up north, and I hope to see most of you in a much warmer place! Take care-